When buying supplements, buyer beware: Your Say

Wal-Mart suspended sales of Craze, a popular sports dietary supplement, after a USA TODAY investigation found the producer has a history of putting risky products on the market. Comments from Facebook are edited for clarity and grammar:

If the Food and Drug Administration starts controlling every vitamin and herbal product, it will cost the taxpayers billions and do very little.

Only known bad producers should be investigated. The federal government and Western medical doctors know little about vitamins and herbs.

— Howard Sherback

Have these products produced as many tragedies as the tobacco or alcohol industry? Why all the uproar?

— Ken Nottingham

We are stupid consumers if we buy products without reading/researching the products. Why is it a producer's job to parent the consumer?

— Aaron C Spiering

There is a certain amount of personal responsibility; you can read reports by individual researchers, but what if these reports contradict what the manufacturer is claiming? It's an absurd concept that consumers have to figure out on their own if something is up to snuff or not.

This is something that can be better done through a government agency. When these agencies, such as the FDA, function the way they should, then government is hardly the problem. It's the solution.

— Jack Bandy

Letter to the editor:

It is important to assure consumers there are critical differences between the illegal products referenced in the USA TODAY article and the lawful supplements millions of consumers rely on every day for their continued health and well-being ("Sports supplement designer has history of risky products").

Dietary supplements provide countless health benefits, which have been documented in decades of careful research. They are regulated by both the Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission.

This article reports on adulterated products masquerading as lawful supplements. Our members fully support FDA's efforts to rid the market of illegal products that pose a danger to consumers and tarnish the reputation of the legitimate supplement industry.

Consumers should be confident in the quality, safety and reliability of lawfully sold dietary supplements.